There was no difficulty in landing; and Neb, who preceded the party, soon gave a shout, the proof that he had made some discovery. Every man among us now looked to his arms, expecting to meet an encampment of savages; but we were disappointed. All that the negro had discovered were the unequivocal traces of a former bivouac; and, judging from a few of the signs, that of no very recent occupation. The traces were extensive, covering quite half of the interior of the island; leaving an extensive curtain of trees and bushes, however, so as completely to conceal the spot from any eyes without. Most of the trees had been burnt down, as we at first thought, in order to obtain fuel; but, farther examination satisfied us, that it had been done as much by accident, as by design.
At first, nothing was discovered in this encampment, which had every appearance of not having been extensively used for years, though the traces of numerous fires, and the signs of footsteps, and a spring in the centre, indicated the recent occupation, of which I have just spoken. A little further scrutiny, however, brought to light certain objects that we did not note without much wonder and concern. Marble made the first discovery. It was impossible for seamen to mistake the object, which was the head of a rudder, containing the tiller-hole, and which might have belonged to a vessel of some two hundred and fifty, or three hundred tons. This set all hands of us at work, and, in a few minutes we found, scattered about, fragments of plank, top-timbers, floor-timbers, and other portions of a ship, all more or less burnt, and stripped of every particle of metal. Even the nails had been drawn by means of perseverance and labour. Nothing was left but the wood, which proved to be live-oak, cedar and locust, the proofs that the unfortunate craft had been a vessel of some value. We wanted no assurance of this, however, as none but a North-West trader could well have got as high up the coast, and all vessels of that class were of the best description. Then the locust, a wood unknown to the ship-builders of Europe, gave us the nearly certain assurance that this doomed craft had been a countryman.
At first, we were all too much occupied with our interesting discovery to bethink us of Smudge. At length, I turned to observe its effect on the savage. He evidently noted our proceedings; but his feelings, if the creature had any, were so deeply buried beneath the mask of dullness, as completely to foil my penetration. He saw us take up fragment after fragment, examine them, heard us converse over them, though in a language he could not understand, and saw us throw them away, one after another, with seemingly equal indifference. At length he brought a half-burned billet to the captain, and held it before his eyes, as if he began to feel some interest in our proceedings. It proved to be merely a bit of ordinary wood, a fragment of one of the beeches of the forest that lay near an extinguished pile; and the act satisfied us all, the fellow did not comprehend the reason of the interest we betrayed. He clearly knew nothing of the strange vessel.